Techie turns delivery agent for two days

A LinkedIn post by a product manager about her brief stint as a food delivery agent in Bengaluru has drawn praise from netizens. Namrata Singh fulfilled six orders over two days in Whitefield.

Her post has clocked 941 likes and 77 comments.

Namrata stepped into the shoes of a gig worker to understand how technology platforms are generating employment for people with basic education. She took up the gig last month during a job break. She was impressed by how technology is deployed on the supply side of things.

She had to enter a code to verify she was picking the right order, she had to click a selfie at the destination to prove she was the assigned agent, and she had the option of pressing an SOS button in case of emergency.

“Surveys often highlight the poor working conditions of delivery agents but no agent complained to me about their job. They were focussed on earning. A young man told me he makes Rs 50,000 a month and is proud to send Rs 35,000 to his village,” she shares.

Women delivering food is an uncommon sight, so restaurant staff mistook her for a customer. The 31-year-old adds, “The security at a mall assumed I was a college student.” The delivery agents, all men, were hesitant to speak to her but helped her “switch on the Map feature on the app”.

The experience got her thinking about gender dynamics. “I chose not to opt for the 8 pm to 12 pm slot for safety reasons. Men have an advantage over women when it comes to working at night,” she says.

She chose the afternoon slot and found it physically draining. It has made her appreciate how these workers “toil through heat, rain, pollution, and traffic to make our lives easier”. “As a society, we need to be inclusive. Some apartments have different routes and lifts for delivery workers,” she rues.

She has some feedback for app makers. “It would be nice to add a reminder like ‘Offer water’ to agents when they come for a delivery,” she says.